Un Mallard Imaginaire
by scousemuz1k
Summary: I know I've spelled it Franglais... Tony on painkillers, poor harassed Tim trying to help.


Un Mallard Imaginaire

by scousemuz1k

You could count it a success, Tony told himself. Outnumbered, he'd hidden amongst the crates, bales, containers and generally unidentified canvas covered lumps by the jetty, waiting for back-up to arrive, but when the guys had dragged young Shay out from wherever they'd been keeping him, towards one of the small, beat-up boats that creaked and strained their ropes in the heavy swell, he'd realised he couldn't wait any longer.

The boy fought and kicked and struggled in a way that would have made his dad, a senior officer on the Seahawk proud, but that wasn't much use with his hands tied behind him and surrounded by hulking adults, and was likely to just get him kicked back. DiNozzo had boiled inwardly and forced himself to wait as the barely-teenager was manhandled; but with four of them to one of him, the only way he could deal with odds like that was by gunning them all down from ambush, and even if he were the type to do that there was always a chance of hitting Shay. But he'd known he had to do something – there was only one reason to be binding the lad's feet. The ransom had been paid and now the unlovely Holton brothers were going to dispose of the witness/victim/evidence.

Tony had watched as the boy was thrown into the bottom of the boat and covered with a scruffy tarpaulin; and then, amazingly, his improvised plan had got its chance. He wouldn't get a better one... He'd hissed 'gotta go, Boss', into the phone he'd been updating Gibbs on, and got ready to move.

"Right. Jonny, hide the car. Vo, you 'n Mac go get the beer. I'll stash the cash."

"_You'll _stash it? How do we know you won't clear off with it?" Vo Holton was only half joking, but a glare from the first speaker, Spence, the eldest, had shut him up. "OK, OK..."

The brothers had scattered, and Tony had moved quickly. Following Spencer Holton silently towards the office building that was as run-down as the boats, he'd simply stepped up behind him and cold-cocked him with the butt of his Sig. The man had gone down like a ton of railroad ballast, and Tony dragged him out through a back door to dump him in an empty outhouse. Odds reduced by one... The sports bag with the money in it he'd thrown into the scrubby bushes on the side of the hill behind the buildings, then, closing the back door so it wasn't obvious anyone had gone that way, he'd raced out of the front one and over to the boat.

He'd jumped down and hauled the tarp back, drawing his knife quickly, and the boy had shrunk away from it, wide eyed. "'s OK. I'm a fed."

Shay nodded, unable to answer for the oily gag in his mouth, and he tore it off as soon as his hands were free. "Uh... thanks! They're still around, I think... said something about beer..."

"Yeah, I heard that. Come on, Shay, let's get out –" Too late. Voices in the distance meant the return of the bad guys. "Over the side," Tony had ordered. "It's shallow. Take my phone, _keep it dry_...go under the jetty. When the coast's clear, hit speed dial one. Don't argue."

So yeah, you could count it as a success... here he was, under the tarp, trying to make himself as small as a teenager, wriggling slightly because it would be expected of him, while the other brothers argued about where Spence had gone.

"He's not in the office. What the hell's going on..." That was Mac, he thought.

"Something must have spooked him..." Jonny. The youngest.

"He's got the money – he's taken the money –" Clearly Vo still didn't trust his elder sibling.

"Spence wouldn't _do_ that!" Jonny seemed to have a better opinion of his big brother...

"Shove it – there's a car coming. Who the hell knows we're here? Come on, Spence or not we gotta get out of here. Get to the boat."

Tony wriggled as the three jumped down, holding his Sig in both hands ready for when they pulled the tarpaulin off him. A half-hearted kick and a flat "Quit that, it won't do you any good," was followed by the sound of an outboard being started.

'_Sheesh,'_ DiNozzo thought, _'they don't paint their boats, or their premises, and they don't maintain their engines. Hope sick means slow... hope that car means McGee.'_

Sick or not, the motor was gunned, and the boat picked up speed, bouncing uncomfortably as it moved away from the land out into choppy swells. Tony listened to Vo Holton's vain and increasingly angry attempts to raise his brother by phone, and his fury at the youngest's insistence on defending him. Good. Keep them off-kilter... He wanted to sneeze, and fought to suppress it in case they could tell the difference between an adult and a teenage sternutation... he'd sneezed in the bull pen that morning, moaned about catching a cold, and been called a hypochondriac by Tim, and just to be different_, un malade imaginaire_ by Ziva. He'd been acting offended, when Gibbs had simply raised a questioning eyebrow – _for real, DiNozzo? _

_Nah, Boss, just grumbling...stopping now. _Hey, it'd felt good that Gibbs still remembered and cared... concentrate, Anthony, soon as we're far enough away from their place they're going to move that tarp and find out –"

"That car... it's following us on the shore road..." Mac, maybe?

"Big and black – like cops drive! And there's a boat following us... I think it's the Coastguard..." that was Jonny's voice again, rising in panic.

"Get rid of the kid."

"Vo, they'll _see_ us! They'll have glasses..."

"Do it!"

The advantage of having a Sig is countered somewhat by being on your back in the bottom of a boat, Tony thought, and tensed to leap to his feet as the tarp was pulled off.

"What the –" and everything happened at once. Tony got as far as his knees, yelling _'Federal Agent'_ as the boat rocked perilously in the uneasy seas, and staggered to his feet bringing his gun up, only for a bullet to whine past him. Vo Holton had a gun too... another shot just missed him – was Holton short sighted or something? It hit the outboard and killed the poor sick engine dead, and the ricochet actually plucked at the leg of Tony's jeans. Enough is enough – he threw himself overboard, and dived under the boat.

His intention was to stay under as long as possible, and swim towards land, while the brothers were pre-occupied by the pursuers. Bet your grandma there was a Marine, and a ninja on board that Coastguard vessel... He wasn't going to waste a good Sig, so he fumbled until he'd secured it in its holster, and only then thought, _'which way's land?' _And only after _that _did he pay any attention to the strength of the current that was pulling him along. _Er... strong... _

Tony surfaced with care; he was a good underwater swimmer, and he wasn't going to be distracted by thoughts of last time he'd had to be... he was ready to snatch a breath and go under again if he had to. No need – the fast Coastguard cutter had reached its quarry in no time at all, thanks to Vo Holton considerately shooting out his own engine. So... swim back to the boat; he could see Gibbs hauling prisoners aboard the powerful craft... which was moving rapidly away in spite of his efforts to swim towards it. OK... the boats weren't actually moving, but the current was rushing _him_ along like a cork.

Ah well... away from the boat meant towards land... glass half full, Anthony, be positive... that black car was still there. And then it wasn't, as he found himself down in the trough of a swell. Up again... the car was still there. So were the rocks. Rocks? That's right. Big and black in the growing dusk. Big and black, and sharp, and hard... as Tony found out soon enough, when the siphoning action of the waves flung him against them, sucked him away and flung him back again. And again.

He scrabbled frantically to get some sort of purchase on them; his hands slid off wet fronds of kelp, and the water dragged him away yet again. He was sure he was getting bruises on his bruises, and his hands were getting slick with blood and sea-water, the knuckles skinned and smarting. He had to find somewhere he could climb out; he didn't know how much longer his body could take this punishment

The water began to pull him away again, and a hand came down and gripped his shoulder, grabbing a useful handful of his jacket and shirt. "Tony, hang on. Come on, grab my hand. Come _on!"_

"McGee... don't want to pull you in..."

"There are two of us here. We'll cope. Just give me your hand, dammit..."

Somebody seized his other arm... heck of a grip for a thirteen-year-old... Shay Bradbury hauled manfully alongside Tim, and Tony tried not to groan as his rescuers pulled and the sea pulled right back. McGee swore under his breath; there was only going to be one winner here, and it wasn't King Freaking Neptune. A few moments later a winded, soaked and battered Very Special Agent lay gasping like a beached whale on the black rocks.

NCISNCISNCIS

"He'll be fine," the ER doctor told Gibbs blithely.

Gibbs scowled, and waited.

"Seriously. He's severely bruised, just about all over, but nothing broken. I'm told someone's bringing him a change of clothes – you can take him as soon as he's dressed. He's going to be very sore for a couple of days; we've given him some strong painkillers to tide him over. He can see his doctor in the morning."

Gibbs grunted, stuck his head round the curtain of the cubicle the doctor indicated, and frowned. A harassed and slightly anxious looking McGee was trying to stop his SFA from driving the emergency buzzer up and down the bed like a child's racing car.

"Tony... stoppit! It'll go off and you'll have half the staff charging in here."

Tony giggled. "Aw... Timmy... it's fun... here, you can have a go!" Tim took his chance and snatched the buzzer away; Tony simply looked round for something else to play with. "Hey... Boss! Me an' McGee, we're having fun! He's my friend... you know? He's really, really my friend. Gotta thank him... He saved me. He pulled me out of the sea. Did you see? Sea... see... geddit?" The inane snigger that followed made Gibbs grind his teeth. He glared at the doctor who hovered cautiously behind him.

"Strong painkiller, huh?"

"Diclocet," the medic said, eager to pacify. "It's very effective."

Gibbs looked at the lanky man sprawled on the bed, peering with earnest fascination at the white dressings on some of his knuckles and the red abrasions on others, and back at the doctor, who shrank into himself like a nervous tortoise. "Yeah..." he growled. "Ya read his notes?" The doctor's expression said it all. Gibbs switched his glare to Tim, and jerked his thumb at Tony. "McGee! Take care of him." He swept out.

"Boss...!" But he was already gone, leaving Tim in a state of frozen horror, where he remained until Tony sneezed. Slowly, the young agent forced himself to look round. He didn't want to see what Tony was doing; he didn't even want to know what Tony was doing... wow, Tony wasn't doing anything. McGee stood nervously, waiting for something to happen, but all his friend did was to sit still, peering uncertainly at the end of his bed, a variety of expressions, each more bewildered than the last chasing across his face. He put his head on one side, then the other, and finally said, "No, I'm not. You're _rude_."

Tim wondered if he should even ask, but his mouth opened anyway. "Not what? And who are you talking to?"

Tony looked at him owlishly. "I'm not too old for this sort of thing. And I'm talking to the duck," he added as if it were obvious. "He says I'm getting too old for the job. What would a widgeon know about it?" He frowned. "He says he's a mallard. He's a widget. A _widgeon. _Or maybe a teal." His head began to nod up and down. "I think I made him mad. He's jumping up and down. Hey, quit that. You're making me dizzy!"

He began to lunge forwards, and Tim pushed him back. "Tony... there's nothing there! It's the pills! Sit back – you'll hurt yourself – and you're in one of those arseless gowns... Tony..."

"He _is _there... he called me an as – ash – asho... come here you –" he threw himself down towards the foot of the bed in spite of Tim's best efforts to hold him back, hands outstretched in a throttling shape, and only the flimsy ties of his gown preserving his decency.

"Di_Nozzo_! There's no duck! It's an imaginary mallard!"

Tony looked at him in outrage. "It's there, Timmy!" He flung out an arm with a dramatic pointing finger, just missing McGee's ear. "It called you a – a duck. I mean a dork. I'll kill it – can't call my friend a dork –" He lunged again, and this time slid sideways right off the bed, and Tim grabbed his arms to stop him from falling. Tony swayed, looked round, and said, "It got away, McGosling... I mean McGee... 's'gone..." He steadied himself, shook his head and drew a deep breath. The green eyes that had been unfocussed and wild were suddenly clear. "This really sucks, Tim," he said, lucidly and with absolute sincerity. His eyes rolled up in his head, he passed out cold, and would have gone down like Spencer Holton had done earlier, if Tim hadn't wrapped his arms round him and allowed his dead weight to bear him to the ground.

When Gibbs yanked the curtain aside a few minutes later, accompanied by young Shay, it was to find both of them sitting on the floor, Tim cradling Tony in his lap, scarlet with embarrassment.

"Aw, sweet," the Boss said, and left again, with Tim's choked yell following him.

"_Boss_...!"


End file.
